The Making of An American Printmaking Advocate
An Interview with Stephen Fredericks of the New York Society of Etchers

by Mike Booth

Where most other people content themselves with either making or collecting prints—and he does both—Stephen Fredericks has gone a big step farther. In 1998 he founded the artist-run, non-profit New York Society of Etchers. That decision set in motion a series of events which transformed his life and eventually made him one of the leading fine-art print advocates in the United States. He has done stints on the boards of the Print Club of New York and the American Artists Professional League. We're interested in knowing what motivates a printmaking apostle. Stephen was kind enough to discuss this and other questions with World Printmakers.

Q: Stephen, please fill us in briefly on your background. Where were you born, when, what happened then?
A: I was born in New York City in 1954. My parents lived in Tenafly, New Jersey, a suburb of New York. My mother had studied art in college. My father went to law school but worked as an advertising executive at the epicentre of the Mad Men era. All of my grandparents lived in New York, and all roads pointed to midtown Manhattan, so I thought New Jersey was a borough of NYC.

When I was a kid I felt like a New Yorker. I went to six different schools in search of the ideal education my parents wanted for me before I graduated from high school. All I ever really wanted to do was to dwell in the arts-- visual, dramatic and musical. My father's idea of a promising future for me was an ivy league school and then a job selling soap for Proctor & Gamble--anything but the arts. At 18 I left for Boston--with a draft card for the Vietnam war--to disappear into the chaos of the social and cultural upheavals sweeping the country at that time. And, disappear I did.

Q: How did your first interest in printmaking arise? Where did you learn the techniques? Do you still make prints?
A: My first printmaking experience was making poster paints and palm prints as a small child. I still have some of this material – my mother the artist saved it for me. I also had a childhood love affair with stamps and used to carve them out of chunks of spent rubber tire, rubber foam and even balsa wood. I used to make things that you couldn't buy in stores at the time – or that were out of reach to me for some reason.

I was interested from an early age in imagery of counter-cultural or political orientation that someone under the age of 18 couldn't easily buy or find – so I made them myself. I was self-taught in all of the earliest techniques I practiced. In addition to stamps I carved wood blocks and linoleum blocks. For years I practiced a Japanese printmaking technique known as Gyo Taku. I also painted water colors. At the age of about 33 or 34 I wandered into the etching studio at the Art Students League of New York looking for a way to increase the efficiency of printing multiples – and never looked back.

Q: Do you make your living from printmaking?
A: Partly. I also have a job working in the real estate business that compliments my life in the arts extremely well. My employer values my artistic perspectives and he accommodates the various commitments that I must keep to my artwork. I have a wife at home and a five-and-a half year old daughter who just started kindergarten.

Q: What compels you to devote so much time to it, then?
A: The short answer to this question is that “I have to do what I do.” The longer answer to this question is that there is a force of some kind, which I cannot describe, that propels me to do the things I do. The closer I am to being on ‘the right path' with a project – the more energy there is to drive me forward. My projects include founding the New York Society of Etchers , The New York Etcher's Press and co-founding the Art of Democracy Coalition .

I heard recently that ‘genius does what it must and talent does what it can.' In my case – it must be a form of obsession that does what it must – I am surrounded by brilliant and happily obsessed people all the time. I use every available opportunity to look closer and dig deeper into everything that ignites passion in me. I am never bored – and never stop ‘editing' anything from an artwork to a children's story I have written until I am forced to by a deadline – personal or otherwise. I could live my life ten more times and not complete all the projects I already have in mind.

Q: Could you please explain to us a bit about the The New York Society of Etchers ? I mean it's objectives, its members, how it works...
A: The idea of founding The New York Society of Etchers occurred to me as a means to solve several challenges that I was facing at that time. About ten years into my experience as an etcher I began to gain a level of confidence with my work that motivated me to show some of it. I was familiar with the competitive juried show format from my years as a painter. I discovered there were printmaker's societies thriving in other major American cities, but chagrined to discover that there was no such organization in New York. The few groups with national memberships held no appeal for me.

One morning in the spring of 1998 I was in bed with a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning, ruminating about the absence of a local printmaker's society when I conceived the idea to start one myself. I spent the next several months researching the history of such organizations in New York State. Roberta Waddell at the New York Public Library introduced me to the historic New York Etching Club of 19 th Century origins – and from that moment there was no turning back.

Q: One of the things the NYSE website refers to is encouraging young artists. How does this work? What have the results been until now?
A: Since our inception all of the group's directors have been directly or indirectly involved with teaching printmaking or working in studios with artists of all ages and skill levels. We have made it a matter of policy to assist young and inexperienced artists to participate in our shows through the juried format we most commonly use. The results are multiple. The artists learn valuable new skills they can employ to promote their work and careers. They benefit from participating as peers in the exhibitions – which is exciting and fun – and occasionally even sell their work.

Many of the artists that have exhibited with us gained their very first professional exposure through one of our shows. There are dozens of stories involving young people who have moved on to serious professional opportunities after getting their ‘first break' in an NYSE exhibition. One such ‘first break' opened a path to the MOMA for one young woman, and the Met's permanent collection for a young man. What a gift that is! The other thing we do is try to get people involved with the organization of our events – so they can learn how to do it themselves. We would love to see other new societies springing up everywhere – it would great for everyone.

Q: How many print exhibits have you organized or co-organized over the past 11 years? What were any that gave you particular satisfaction?
A: I think there have been 36 shows so far. About ten of them have involved international exchange. There have been at least ten institutional exhibitions of one sort or another, and the remainder of straightforward print exhibits. The first show--which drew a huge response and crowd--entailed the biggest risk and probably held the greatest personal reward for me. There was a lot of amazement and joy, as well as some resentment and bickering about our success from some of New York printmaking's “old guard.”

Another one of the shows that I loved was our Winter Salon, 2005. One of our directors came up with a great renovated industrial garage out in Brooklyn for the venue. We circulated a self-jurying open call for entries at $10 per artist – and used the proceeds to have a huge party for 6-700 people showed up for an all-night blast. A lot of the work sold, too. If I could remember exactly how I organized it I would do it again tomorrow. There's nothing like a good international exchange, too.

Q: How did the remarkably successful Art of Democracy exhibit come about, and what were the results? Are there plans to do any more print-based political activism? Please tell us about it.
A : The Art of Persuasion exhibition we held in 2006 was my response to the growing police and intelligence presence in the lives of American citizens. When I first conceived the show--not long after the onset of the Iraq war--our country was not sympathetic with left-leaning sentiments. The decision to plan the exhibition carried with it many doubts and personal reservations, but it was precisely that combination of factors that committed me to it.

We had a very well received opening in early November 2006. Shortly after that, and the national elections that dramatically reversed the political winds in Washington, San Francisco printmaker and art activist, Art Hazelwood of San Francisco wrote to congratulate us. He was so inspired that he planned to do a similar event to cover the 2008 election cycle in his hometown. Before I finished his email I was on the phone to him and proposed we organize a joint effort between our two cities. The national coalition grew from that one email and call. The results generated by the Art of Democracy Coalition are not easy to qualify.

The collective grew to incorporate some 50 official shows of original art and perhaps as many as a dozen additional poster exhibitions. Over one hundred Art of Democracy posters were published. Some 1,000 artists were directly involved with the effort – and we probably reached an audience in the millions. The Art of Democracy coalition was, we believe, the largest network of inter-related art exhibitions ever organized in American history.

Q: Six years after founding the NYSE you created the New York Etchers Press , a print and artists-book publishing company. You weren't busy enough already?
A: The New York Etcher's Press was a natural out-growth of my experience with The New York Society of Etchers . Through all of my exposure to the amazing work in our shows and organizing efforts I started fantasizing ‘dream portfolios.' I could see how different individual styles with various subject matters could be combined with stunning result into thematic group portfolios. In the print studio of the Art Students League during the 90's I learned how to participate in--and ultimately organize-- such a portfolio. The rest was easy, exciting and profoundly rewarding. Each of the projects I have published has its own merits. And yes, I was already busy enough. But the thrills involved with working with all of the artists, then placing all of our work in institutions that include The Metropolitan Museum of Art keeps me inspired to continue.

Q: Please tell us about some of the more interesting things you have published.
A: Each project has been a unique experience. The first one involved gathering together a group of artists for a day-long sketching session of the female nude. That ended with a final sketch executed directly on a pre-prepared plate. We used one of the participants' etching studios. We filmed it; it was very cool. Then we moved on to capturing iconic New York locales including Coney Island , which is now largely gone; The Bronx Zoo and most recently Times Square; which has also been radically transformed since the nine artists recorded it.

Early on with A Day at the Zoo the zoo officials caught on to what we were up to and called me into the office. I thought we were going to get shut down. It turned out they wanted to adopt the project. Each artist received a free pass to the grounds for a year. At the end I was invited to present the portfolio at a board meeting, and they exhibited the finished porfolio in the visitor's center for almost six months. Everyone had a great time. Thank god for the Wildlife Conservation Society

Q: All of this exhibiting and publishing activity sounds expensive. How is it all financed? Do you have any sponsorship?
A: We raise the entire budgets for our New York Society of Etchers shows form modest entry fees. Since we open our shows only to New Yorker artists, the pool of entrants (compared to a national one) is modest too. So we have learned to do things on a remarkably thin budget with no outside sponsorship. I personally funded the New York Etchers Press with an initial cash outlay, also modest. The materials of publishing are relatively cheap. It's time that is expensive.

Q: Do you have someone to help you in all of your print-related activities, or do you do it all yourself?
A: I have lots of help from other board directors with the NYSE . It is a team effort. I manage the New York Etcher's Press from stem to stern myself.

Q: The NYSE experience has been very successful. Do you think it's a model that might be copied and exported to other cities, perhaps to other countries?
A: Elements of the NYSE model have already been copied, with our input and support both inside and outside of the US. There is one group of artists in another country I am encouraging and working with right now on an etcher's society. I prefer not to identify the groups we have influenced, however. They all deserve 100% of the credit for their efforts.

Q: Speaking of other countries, as you know, many of them subsidize artist activity. How do you feel about that system, as compared to the American way of doing things?
A: I grew up with the way we do it here. If we did it here the way it's done in other countries the funding would be just as politicized as everything else is ‘here and there.' I would never compromise a penny of our independence for a dollar of public funding.

Q: What's your next step in your ongoing print-art campaign? Will you be taking over the world through the power of etchings?
A: We are currently restructuring the NYSE to include our first-ever national survey of intaglio, which will go up on the walls of the National Arts Club in June 2011. The print curator and scholar Roberta Waddell of the New York Public Library will jury the show for us. We are also expanding, indefinitely, our annual exhibition held during Print Week New York to include works by guest artists from other countries. This year artists from Australia and Israel joined us, with smashing results. Next year's guests are under discussion now. We are very excited about this.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: Just to say “Thanks very very much!”